Wicked Fix (29 page)

I'm going back."

He lifted the two-gallon gas can he'd brought, began

transferring the contents to my tank. "How about

I follow you? Be on the safe side."

After what I'd been through, the safe side sounded

good to me. He stopped traffic while I backed gingerly

onto the pavement. Ten minutes later we were back on

the Golding Road, pulled up behind my earlier tire

marks on the soft, sandy shoulder.

No huge puddle of gasoline was in evidence, not

that I'd expected any. I got down on my knees, peering

and sniffing. There wouldn't be much. ...

"Here." A few round, shallow depressions like

raindrops in the sand, smelling of gas.

I got up, waiting while Bob came over, crouched,

and got up again looking thoughtful.

"I grew up poor," I said. "I know how to siphon

gas."

"You don't," Bob agreed, "want to get it in your

mouth. I've dragged a few kids to the hospital on that

score. You can breathe it in."

"Clear plastic tube, suck on it till the gas rises,

drop the end low but before you taste it, it keeps running

into your gas can. Or whatever."

"Couple of drops," Bob said, "will always get

spilled."

He looked down at the raindrop marks, toed the

sand by the road. "So how do you want to play this?

File a complaint?"

"No. Actually, I'd appreciate it if you kept it

quiet."

"Sure you know what you're doing?"

"Nope. I just know I've got a lot more questions to

ask, and I don't want to do anything to change what's

going on while I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

That's all."

Somebody wanted to play it subtle; I could, too.

He blew out a breath, settling himself behind the wheel

of his squad car.

"Jacobia," he began unhappily.

Suddenly I was glad he didn't have X-ray vision;

the little .25 semiauto was in my sweater pocket.

"I won't do anything rash," I told Bob Arnold earnestly.

Hoping it was true.

That afternoon, we got the call I hadn't

wanted: Sam was to be questioned by representatives

of the district attorney's office, but

not by the police. The whole thing had simply

become a prosecution matter. Also, the meeting

was to happen ASAP.

Sam took the news badly, his face mulish, shoulders

hunched. He'd just gotten home from work at the

boatyard and was grubby and irritable. "Let them put

me in jail if they want to. I'm not going to do it."

"Sam, it's not as if you'll tell something new. Your

dad has spoken with them, they already know what

you'll say."

I could be present, I'd been told, but could not

communicate with Sam or assist him while he was giving

his statement.

"Are you going to do it?" he demanded. "Talk to

them?"

"They haven't asked me." They weren't saying

why about that, but for now, they didn't want any of

the rest of us.

Only Sam. "Great. I get to be the traitor."

Because he was the one with firsthand knowledge

of Victor's being in the cemetery that night. But there

was no reason to act as if we had something to hide; I'd

called Bennet and he'd agreed with me.

"Look, why don't we just go down there and get it

over with. Refusing to cooperate might only make

things worse."

He looked up miserably, hands clenched on the

kitchen table. His nails were grimy, his fingers battered

and banged up as usual from the physical work he did.

"How?"

"Sam, if you won't talk to them, they'll think you

know more than your father has said. And obviously

you wouldn't be trying to keep quiet about something

good, would you? Doesn't that make sense?"

"I guess so." He got up reluctantly. "So, did they

say they want me now?"

"Now." I traded my sweater for a jacket and ran

downstairs to put the .25 into the lockbox, feeling that

carrying a weapon into Bob Arnold's office went a little

far. Sam went as he was: boots, sweatshirt, and beat-up

jeans full of paint smears and oil stains.

"Tommy's got something for you," he said as we

drove down to Water Street.

"Yeah?" I glanced at him. His face was set in the

look it wore when he was going to the dentist. "Some

papers. His mother found them at the library, said you

might want 'em. You're sure this isn't going to hurt

Dad?"

"I'm sure," I told him, though I wasn't really. I just

knew what Bennet and I had decided: that the alternative

could be worse. And since Victor had already

spilled his guts, as Bennet had put it, there seemed little

to lose.

The Eastport Police Station was a two-story frame

storefront furnished with metal desks and office chairs.

Inside, the state ADA was a civil, serious-looking

young man in suit and tie.

Bob Arnold wasn't there. The young man looked

spiffy, and a bit taken aback at Sam's appearance. But

he stepped manfully up to the task of conversing with

someone so clearly of a lower economic stratum than

himself, and of course I did not swat the patronizing

smile off his peach-fuzzy face.

So it all went reasonably well, at first. After the

introductions, Sam told the same story he'd told before.

But then they got to the part about Victor in the

cemetery.

The young man frowned. "I'm not sure I understand.

You rode right by, even though you knew your

father was sitting there?"

Probably his own father was one of those nurturing

types you see on the network TV dramas. Wise

expression, steadying hand on the shoulder, stern but

fair. Hey, somebody's got to have one.

"That's what I said." Sam's face was stoic.

"You didn't stop. Ask him what he was doing

there. See if he was all right."

"No. I didn't."

"Why not?"

"He saw me. If he'd wanted to talk, he'd have spoken."

"Did you think then that something might be

wrong?"

A fair question, but I could see where he was going.

"I thought ... I thought there might be," Sam

conceded. "My father was sitting in a cemetery in the

middle of the night."

"He wasn't in the habit of doing that," the young

man said. "So you thought it might indicate something

unusual."

"That's right." Sam's voice was a monotone.

Still, that Victor's actions might indicate an unusual

state of mind was no great revelation. And

Victor's mind was frequently unusual, as many could

testify.

Then came the curveball. "One last question: Have

you ever seen your father strike anyone in anger?"

Sam hesitated. Then, in a low voice: "Yes."

"Whom did he strike?

"My--" He swallowed hard. "My mother. But

that was ..."

A long time ago. I sat horrified. How had they

learned that? No one even knew about it except ...

And then I realized: Somehow they'd gotten Victor

to admit the incident, and now they were using it: This

is what we'll make your son say in public if you don't

play ball with us.

This and more: all the dirt from the divorce. They

wanted a confession and were using Sam to try to get

one.

"The interview," I announced, "is over."

The civil young man in the neat suit and tie didn't

bat an eyelash. "So your dad's capable of physical violence."

"He only got angry that one time," Sam protested.

"Sam. Stop talking right now." I crossed the room

and got in front of him. "Go out to the car."

The young man looked up at me as if I were a

housefly and my buzzing annoyed him. "I'm nearly finished."

His tone of strained patience was what did me in. I

reached down, wrapped my ringers around his Windsor

knot, and yanked hard on it.

"My son's a minor. The interview is over when I

say it is. Got it?"

I let go. His eyes were big as pie plates. "I'm going

to take into account the fact that you are upset," he

spluttered as I turned away from him.

"Do that. And from now on if you want to talk to

my family, bring a court order." I seized Sam's arm,

propelled him out ahead of me, letting the door slam.

"Sam, I apologize." I got into the car beside him.

"I had no idea he would know enough to try to discuss

that."

Bennet either, apparently, and so much for following

any more of his advice.

"It really sucked," Sam said, slouched beside me.

He looked shellshocked.

He'd been ten when the incident happened: Victor

and I so hideously angry at each other, we hadn't even

known he was in the room. Victor said later he'd have

sat there and let me beat him bloody, if only he could

have wiped the look of fright off Sam's face.

It was the closest to an apology I ever got from

Victor. But nothing like that had ever occurred again,

and I hadn't brought it up in the divorce.

"You were pretty good in there, though," he said

at last.

I glanced cautiously at him. "Thanks. I hope when

that punk thinks it over, he won't decide to have me

charged with battery. Sam, about your dad and

me ..."

His shoulders moved impatiently. "I guess somebody

must've scared Dad, or he wouldn't have mentioned

it."

It was what I thought, too, that the prosecutors

had taken a sworn statement, asked him about violence

in his past. And Victor couldn't very well not tell the

truth about the incident, because I might.

"Sam," I tried again, "if you could just explain to

me ..."

Why this bothered him so much. After all, he had

gotten over other things, ones that hurt me worse than

a single, never-to-be-repeated face slap.

He blew out a breath. "Okay, look. After the divorce

was over you forgave him, or whatever you did,